Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday June 19, 2011 @12:31PM
from the jumping-through-hoops dept.

bfwebster writes "Browsing the web this morning, I discovered that the New York Post is blocking iPad users from reading its website via Safari. Instead, iPad users must download and use the NY Post App instead. That app previously required a paid subscription (which is one reason I didn't use it); however, the version I downloaded this morning isn't making any demands for payment. Yet."

You can leave a garden (so-called by the owners) as easily as enter it. Since iPad users are prevented from leaving, it could as easily be referred to as a jail by its inmates.
Those who would pay for confinement inside a walled jail must really fear the outside world...

All the posts thus far are taking shots at Apple. That seems really misguided.
It's the NY Post that is restricting people from accessing the same content over the same internet, simply because of the device. They're the ones making you download an app to get the content you want, probably allowing them to get higher-profit ads.
This isn't Apple's fault, for not letting you spoof the user agent string. No one should ever have to spoof a user agent. All it should be used for is to tell the server what you're running so it can serve you better. The NY Post is using it to ignore the fact that you have a perfectly functioning and capable client in order to suit their desires.
I know that in the tech world, we often jump to tech solutions to problems. But that doesn't fix anything, really, nor for most users. The target of ire here should be the NY Post and their abuse of internet standards and openness. The focus should be on getting them to behave better, to set a precedent so others don't do the same thing. A work-around that will help the 1% of us tech users is insignificant.
OT: New poster here. How do I add linebreaks in my posts? Simple carriage returns seem to get eaten.

And if the NY Post did the same thing with mobile IE so that you had to buy the WP 7 app and subscription it's all MS' fault too. If it did the same thing with Android browsers, it's all Google's fault?

Um, I'm not sure which Slashdot you've been reading, but Apple hatred is rampant on this one. I have no problem with people not liking Apple, or criticizing their policies, etc., like you claim you are doing, but much what passes for "Insightful" and "Informative" on slashdot is borderline insane.

Taking this specific story as an example, Apple isn't even doing anything, yet this is cited as a problem with the "walled garden". WTF? It makes no sense. Especially since Apple's "walled garden" has alternate browsers which allow one to spoof their way through the NY Post's paywall.

But then *that* has to be spun yet again, and people stating that Apple will just pull these browsers from the App Store get modded up, even though that makes no sense whatsoever.

> . They don't know how things work, they don't care, and they don't want to have to mess with it.

To be honest, this is a little bit of a myth. Yes, most of them don't care until they one day happen upon a restriction that bothers them. For example, my mother who wanted to copy an audio book from her friend's computer onto her iPod Touch. Suddenly she is calling me up saying "I thought I could plug in my iPod and just copy it there but it doesn't show up and iTunes has scary messages about deleting everything!". And all I can say is "there's no good reason for it, but Apple doesn't want you to copy anything onto your iPod unless you do it through iTunes on your own computer. That way they make more money." And then she suddenly cared. So in most cases it's not that they don't care - it's that their lack of technical knowledge shields them from the reasons to care.